"dallied" poems
Everyone said I had such great potential:
A bright eyed lad, adept with word and song,
an angelic voice, a wordsmith like a lawyer.
They look at me now and wonder-what went wrong?
If I could put my finger on the problem,
Procrastination did beget my fall.
I had, at times, an ambitious plan and project.
I just never got around to it, that’s all.
I dallied in my summer’s afternoon,
Listening to other siren’s songs
Now winter comes upon me with a vengeance
I realize now I never sang my song.
But on my cluttered desk, a wooden talisman!
A round wood carving- a Tuit tis
And now, in possession of a round Tuit,
I’ve no excuse for wasting time like this.
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 5:37 PM UTC
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace—reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion—
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This—all this—was in the olden
Time long ago),
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute’s well-tuned law,
Bound about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate !)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh—but smile no more.
5k
The leopard and the lion chose to become friends,
For they were all proud of claws on their paws
They each glorified one another for their mighty,
Ability to live on meat of other fauna throughout a year,
They each admired one another for running speed,
They each remained firm and loyal to one rule;
Lions don’t eat leopards neither leopards eat lions.
They felt warmth in their companionship without verve,
Until the time they initiated a certain joint venture;
To hunt an antelope as it was famed to be the sweetest,
Again, there had remained one antelope only in the world,
They dilly and not dallied anyhow about such glittering project,
They both endevoured to set forth by each dawn for a whole year,
Tediously hunting throughout a day, the lion doing a great part,
Setting ambuscades and arduously sleuthing to orient on trail,
The leopard severally fainted in the field due to exhaustion,
On one eve of christmas day, the lion captured the prey,
When the leopard was a sleep shivering in fevers of malaria,
Their prey was a middle aged female antelope with swollen hips.
The leopard was sparked to fire of life by a mysterious fillip,
He boldly requested work, now to help the lion in carrying,
The un-suspecting lion relinquished the carcass to the leopard,
Feat of shrewdness gripped the leopard, he took off
Running away with a lightening speed, the antelope on his mouth,
The lion again began to chase, shouting to the leopard,
To be a gentleman and stop running, for them to share the plunder,
The leopard never listened, he craftily climbed to the apex,
Of the most tall and most slippery tree, he perched at the peak
With the antelope on his muscular mandibles of voracity,
The lion remained at the stem, wailing like a toddler
His family does not climb trees, not even a shrub,
The lion wailed, using all styles of wailing,
Pleading with the leopard to donate even an iota,
Not even a small piece of antelope bone dropped
To drop on the ground for the lion to taste,
Human leopards are not good hunting companions.
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
As I, in the forest, stood
Pondering nature's wonder
I peered up at the canopy, so lush and green
Of which, I dallied under...
Hopping through the foliage
That stretched across the ground
A chipmunk hurried to a log
And alit upon it with a bound...
Underneath the stratosphere
High atop a tree
A large black crow, I did hear
Calling down to me...
Proceeding to the beach, so warm
My feet, prints in the sand, did form
As I dug in with my toes,
I felt the sun, so warm
My mood was of repose...
Seagulls, high above, did play
Hunting, calling, all the day
Upon the evening tide
Bubbles of white foam did ride...
The summer felt just like a friend
Although, I knew, it, soon, would end
My visit to this paradise
Concluded in a way, so nice...
I knew I would return, again
To the shores of Lake Michigan.
Nov 7, 2010
Nov 7, 2010 at 5:37 PM UTC
I’m the worst **** in the world
No one is worse than me.
For my next bride,
I shall marry the Queen of She
Ba (Academy presents her majesty.
Nominee gushes.
Audience applauds exhaustively.)
She will manhandle me,
Liquor on her breath,
Feathers framing ******
Inflamed blossoms drenching submissions
She told me to delete
The photographs,
Even though there were many
Caught her beauty in amazing graces.
She hated me
For putting up so little struggle,
Obliterating her splendor
Indifferently.
I wanted to prove
Deserving of her love.
she dilly-dallied, distracted.
I cried pitifully, “Where’s my girlfriend?”
Chain of events to nothingness
My desolate existence
One deficit after another
Honed to fragile cutting-edge.
I wanted her to pleasure me
With subtle painful tinge.
She brilliantly found fault
Every conceivable way to blame.
She accused, “you fiddle in noodle factory.”
She was the true artist,
Dissatisfied with the sound
Of my heart beating.
You want to play hardball with the big boys?
You better show up with bulging intelligent creativity.
You complain about
Every infinitesimal gargantuan thing.
Nothing makes you happy.
I will always love you no
Matter how impossible.
Looking back,
You were an impossible chance.
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 10:28 AM UTC
We strode together in another age, my love,
You, in your earthen gown and beautiful dark tresses.
I, the wearer of the long plaited, thong and sinew sandal.
You and I, we strode through quiet valleys of tall conifer
Where huge rock falls left monolithic edifices... as monuments to past largess.
Together we walked as one, in a world much simpler than the one we live in now.
In a time, without the inhibition of contrivance or sophistication.
We walked in clarity and drank from clear, clean waters.
We dallied in the honeyed light of a huge, summer moon.
A field of dandy lions in the warm April sunshine, was the byre in which we made love and produced our babies.
A love ... un-harried, unhurried and devoid of any preoccupation other than that of the beautiful desire
We felt for each other.
The love we feel now is the same as the love shared then;
But in this age it is diluted and complicated by the urgencies and imperatives of the day.
Then there was just time...given and taken.
Without cost or penalty, without blame or insinuation, without hurt or harm.
Time in that better age...was a friend.
A friend who augmented the beauty of today into the promise of tomorrow,
A friend who exchanged the serenity of yesterday for the excitement of the new day’s dawn.
This was our time, when the bond of eternity sealed our commitment to each other.
For however many lifetimes we may live in...
We shall be one.
Marshalg
For darling Janet
12 September 2011
Sep 12, 2011
Sep 12, 2011 at 3:14 PM UTC
I'm gunna be a dad!
And I'll admit, I'm a little scared,
I had never dared or dallied that-
Fatherhood may be my next hat,
My love and I aren't married yet,
Not that I will ever regret,
I'll bet on our love and firmly wait-
With sights on our wedding day,
And to our baby, precious dear,
We await you with joy and cheer,
We promise, we will always adore-
And cherish you, forever more.
Dec 16, 2018
Dec 16, 2018 at 11:14 PM UTC
Silently still was the dawdling in dawn,
it dallied slowly as the tremulous air was stunned,
but that air still pervaded with an influence of an expressive moan
in quality and tone;
rare, soft, delicate, and of a certain air all her own.
Her hand, the wind in a mermaid's golden hair,
the subtle sunrays began to glisten with an olden care:
and all assurance is on that the dayshore's thus begun,
unfolding like a whisper in the va~por~ous sun.
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 5:30 PM UTC
In the limbs of a tree ever growing,
Was born a boy to a mother much knowing.
She said in a quite prophetic state,
"My son, oh my son, you will be great!"
So she set to her back the child and crib,
He nestled deep in the cloth head to her rib.
Hand over hand mother set to climbing,
Her heart to the treetop was pining.
The tree ever growing reached toward the sky,
The upper limbs were reached by those who could fly.
But mother kept climbing she'd never give in,
Even when the height made eagles heads spin.
Nourished on milk and fruit of the tree,
The babe soon grew to a boy happy and free.
So big was the boy he could climb too,
He followed his mother as he grew and grew.
"My son, oh my son, you will be great!
You can sculpt love in a world of hate!"
So the boy climbed onto the upper limbs,
His strength pours forth even as the sun dims.
Boy with such power and talent pure,
Was much, much too much of himself sure.
As the tree grew the boy was distracted,
He stopped to pluck vines and see how they reacted.
Vine after vine between slabs of dead wood,
The boy built a harp and play it he could.
As the harp grew so did the tree,
Till the next branch was from his reach free.
"Mother, oh mother please hear my cry!
The tree has grow too far toward the sky!"
And down reached her hand to grasp his,
And up she pulled him with a whisk and a ****
"My son, oh my son, you will be great!
You can sculpt love in a world of hate!"
So the boy climbed onto the upper limbs,
His strength pours forth even as the sun dims.
But the boy grew cocky and dallied again,
To slide along limbs in the dew and the rain.
He never lost balance or came close to fall,
But as he slid the tree again grew tall.
"Mother, oh mother please hear my cry!
The tree has grow too far toward the sky!"
And down reached her hand to grasp his,
And up she pulled him with a whisk and a ****
"My son, oh my son, you will be great!
You can sculpt love in a world of hate!"
So the boy climbed onto the upper limbs,
His strength pours forth even as the sun dims.
But this time again the boy lingered halted,
He spied a girl in the leaves for her his heart vaulted.
For her he took bark and wrote words of heart,
And when she read them her heart gave a start.
For a long time there halted the boy,
Not a thing in the world could stop this ploy.
The tree ever growing lived up to its name,
And boy missed his chance when it finally came.
After a time the boy saw his great mistake,
And the pain in his mother's eyes made his heart ache.
Her hand reached down and his quested up,
But to grasp her fingers was not in the boy's luck.
"My son, oh my son, you could have been great!
You could have had love in a world of hate!"
And more crushing was this than all things other,
For this was the loss of hope from his mother.
But the boy in his heart held one last hope,
For a life with more than things with which to cope.
So he turned his back to the trunk of the tree,
And ran off the limb with an exclamation of glee.
With harp in one hand and girl in the other,
The boy flew up to meet with his mother.
From there they flew up into the sky,
To find the treetop so very, very high.
Aug 15, 2010
Aug 15, 2010 at 10:52 AM UTC
I always just...
stop. stop this now.
You made the hole
you took the shovel
and you made the hole.
You bought daffodils
you took your time
you dallied you
thought this day
would never come when
you would have to
grow up, face the
sun and hit the
wall.
You asked for them
to let you,
fall, thinking, hoping
that you were never
going to be the
kind of person who
tumbled.
as if you
were special, were
different from the
status quo of other
quarter century
beings lost in
a crowd of crows
picking at the
remnants of a hopeless
future,
after the crops of
university knowledge
failed.
and now, in this
coffee shop where
you wait for
tips, you remember that
you once wished for
anything but
the tracks you
were in.
the ones for your
career, that you were
so weary of.
before even
starting.
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 9:33 PM UTC
We inched towards that space today
You and I
Where lovers pace themselves before
The taste of nectar
Takes their breath away.
We dallied in some dreamy glade
And made ourselves
Stand still
To smell the longing mounting, then
Me and you
Began counting seconds 'til through
The moment's glaze
We silently pledged our love anew.
Sep 23, 2016
Sep 23, 2016 at 5:55 AM UTC
We ask our lord today
“We ask our lord today”
To forgive those we lost
“To forgive those we lost”
Why? Why ask forgiveness
For those who sought to destroy
Render our world fictitious
Burned our world like Troy
They promised us utopia
Left us with dystopia
Burning rage sparks our collective will
Render unto the gallant dead
They merrily rushed to the battlefield
We ask our lord today
“We ask our lord today”
To forgive the sins of the unborn
“To forgive the sins of the unborn”
Help! Help those in need
Will our children see the deed?
Passed on to us by virtue
Now we pass it on to you
Bone heaps and dallied dead
Fragrance spoilt roses
Left for a faceless grave
Dystopian hellscape
We ask our lord today
“We ask our lord today”
To guide our hands from strife
“To guide our hands from strife”
Prevent us from repeating
What our ancestors failed preventing
Oct 20, 2017
Oct 20, 2017 at 6:10 AM UTC
For solemn hands to hold as I grow frail and old
Wrinkled eyes smiling tiredly back at mine
In their depths I would relive soft tongued mornings
Stormy edges that echoed the heated joining of youth and vigor
I have danced and dallied with the widow maker
With sharp design he’s a real heart breaker
Ticking time tears add salt to each story retold
At my feet to little ears and little eyes that yearn to see
If only for a moment
What it was like to be free
Dec 13, 2018
Dec 13, 2018 at 11:23 PM UTC
We’d dallied with bright shining dreams, of course;
Gatsby-esque timetables and solemn pacts
Made with ourselves, come undone with brute force.
A bitter brew to quaff, but facts are facts;
We’re those workaday cogs we once foreswore
(Of no note at all save in mothers’ hearts)
Doomed to lurch forward while being no more
Than the shabby sum of commonplace parts.
Let us shelve tattered remnants of our ghosts,
And deign not to dwell on what could have been,
At last shaken free of our fathers’ boasts
(Praise God, no longer promising young men.)
Unshackled from that, then we can begin
To embrace the joy of just sleeping in.
Oct 5, 2017
Oct 5, 2017 at 8:39 AM UTC
She was that fatal girl who said the worst goodnight.
No one but she!
None could have dished out poison with such right
Perceptive wit upon occasions
Of late merry-making when wine and beer,
Cakes and red cheese, dallied down
The honeyed round.
Skill! Skill!
Such women with such skill!
Super controllers of no destiny!
Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of scorpions.
Jill came down
With daisy-chains
But Jack was bitten to ribbons.
Nov 30, 2017
Nov 30, 2017 at 6:59 PM UTC
Long, long ago,
Like the Lord of the Rings,
An epic tragedy formed,
At this start of all things.
Many moons have now passed,
Since I was asked by a friend,
"Write a poem about Covid",
"To look back at the end"
Government guidance unclear,
Shambolic, inept,
"Stay at home" oft they cried,
As alone in their homes, many thousands they died.
They dillied, they dallied,
From their safe ivory towers,
As the funerals passed by,
With no grieving or flowers.
Many suns have now set,
Countless days have since past,
With families left absent,
As dear relatives breathed their last.
Staying away must be tough,
But it's what you must do,
Harsh they appear, but these are the rules,
Tho not meant for me, they apply just to you.
This Europe we've left,
With our death rate immense,
Now this Europe we lead,
Our leaders bereft of simple common sense.
Then there's that bloke called Cummings,
And his car trip while blind,
On his wee jaunt to Durham,
Tho if you or I, we'd be heavily fined.
But we're not all angels, we must share some blame,
Being "all about me", so selfish our goals,
Stocking up on pasta and hand sanitiser too,
Oh and of course, we can't forget bog rolls.
Basic hygiene was lacking, or so it appears,
Like being back at school,
Wash your hands all the time,
20 seconds the rule.
Simple instructions we were given,
So easy to follow,
Delivered by leaders,
With emotions so hollow.
On how poorly it's been managed,
So much could be said,
But the one thing that matters,
Is tens of thousands lie dead.
So! My feelings on Johnson?
If you ask I'll be blunt,
But to fit with my rhyming,
This poem "is to be cont..."
May 27, 2020
May 27, 2020 at 11:02 PM UTC